Monday, 5 September 2016

Some more waffly thoughts on subject matter in poems

When we are editing a poem one of the
things we have to think about is the subject matter. Some subject matter is unique or
unusual – which can be a good thing because it will immediately make the reader
more interested – I am thinking here of poems like Jo Shapcott’s poems Piss Flower or Scorpion (which starts “I kill it because…”). Titles or opening
lines like this will immediately grab the reader’s attention – but of course
the rest of the poem then has to live up to this arresting start.

Subject matter can also be the bane of a poem.
It might be too anecdotal (I have talked about this before here) and needs to
have something that lifts it above and beyond the anecdote itself – some kind
of insight (though not too obvious or cheesy), or something unexplained or unexpected
might take place. Or it may be that your subject matter is something that has
been written about many times before (how many poems have you read about cats,
dogs, death, the moon, mothers, childbirth, etc.?). The question then is
whether your poem is doing anything different to all the other poems on the
subject – or is it just another poem saying how beautiful the moon is – if the
latter then it is probably best to put that poem aside and move on. That isn’t
to say that we should never write about these subjects (although there are
people who would tell you otherwise). But you might find that you have to write
quite a few poems about the moon or a dog or whatever before you hit an idea
that will stand up to proper critical scrutiny. I decided that I wanted to
reclaim the moon a year or two ago – after many poets and poetry teachers had
told me it was a subject best avoided. I decided to tackle it during NaPoWriMo
(National poetry writing month). I wrote about six different moon poems in all ranging
from pretty trite to almost but not quite OK, and then when I had all but given
up on the idea my moon poem came – I am not saying it’s a brilliant poem but
it’s certainly not like any other moon poem I have read.

Of course the other thing to bear in mind when
you are writing about something like the moon (as well as all the poems that
have gone before) is the weight of common knowledge about your subject. The
science, the mythology, the religious connotations – even if none of this stuff
makes it into your poem, it is there at your shoulder and you should be aware of
it, it should inform your writing, even if only on a subconscious level. But
one needs to beware too, of this knowledge. As a teacher I see many poems that
are over-burdened with facts: poems written by eager students who are keen to squeeze
in every interesting thing they know about their subject matter. There is no
need to squeeze everything you know into one poem, however interesting it is,
save some facts for other poems you might write later, or if you feel you have
to get all those juicy facts in then perhaps you should write an essay. Personally I don’t read poetry to learn
about a subject – although sometimes I do learn something – I read a poem to be
moved, to feel connected, to learn something about the world that I already
knew but perhaps couldn’t articulate, to be excited by concepts or language or
form, to connect with what makes us/me human, to feel like I have accidentally stumbled on home.

2 comments:

It seems a popular issue to worry about at the moment. There's also http://artoffiction.blogspot.co.uk/2016/08/what-are-your-poems-about.html

I think my stuff is less and less about "something", though there are more identifiable things in them nowadays. As an analogy - Magritte's painting of a train clearly coming out of a fireplace isn't about trains. Much.

And I'm more careful about titles nowadays, in case readers think that they provide the key to the subject matter. Here's another quote - in 1948 Pollock stopped giving his paintings titles, saying that "it would only confuse things"

About Me

Julia has a BA (Hons) in Creative Writing from Norwich University College of the Arts and an MA in Creative Writing, Poetry from the University of East Anglia. Her writing explores the difficult and dark minutiae of everyday life, human relationships in all their difficulty and awkwardness and the uncomfortablenesses of the human body. She has a fascination for the surreal and likes to experiment and play. Julia's book Bird Sisters was published by Nine Arches Press in May 2016. Julia works for Gatehouse Press, is an editor for Lighthouse Literary Journal, teaches creative writing and critiques poetry manuscripts.